Trust Your Gut. Change Your Life.

Tap into the power of your intuition to make your dreams happen. Learn how these five women used theirs to change their lives.

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Right this very moment, you have at your disposal a powerful tool that can make your dreams happen, whether you yearn to live in a beautiful home in the country, or land a job you'll love, or [insert your heart's desire here]. That tool is your intuition. But your sixth sense won't do you any good if you don't know how to use it. On these pages, you'll read about five women who let their gut feelings guide them to true happiness, and learn how you can do the same. You make logical decisions every day — when to get up, what to eat, how to get your work done. But how often do you act on a gut feeling, one of those deep-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach sensations that just seems right even though everything else (your past experiences ... your pro-and-con lists ... your mother ...) is telling you it's wrong? Paying attention to those feelings — and acting on them — is neither flaky nor foolish; it's actually an extremely effective way to harness your inner wisdom and lead yourself toward what you want in life. Need proof? We spoke to five women whose lives were powerfully changed when they listened to their intuition. Let their stories inspire you to tune in to — and then follow — your gut feelings.

"Fourteen years ago, my husband, James, and I took one of our get-outta-town trips to escape our cramped condo in San Diego. We were taking a walk through Idyllwild, CA, a quaint community in the San Bernadino National Forest, when I noticed some really nice houses there. Idyllwild has little industry other than tiny tourist shops, and we knew that real estate in the area was extremely expensive. I asked James, 'What do these people do that makes it possible for them to live here?' Then it dawned on us: telecommuting. They probably all worked from home.

"It immediately struck me that if we ran our own business, we could live anywhere we wanted. It was such a freeing thought, and I just couldn't get it out of my head after we returned home. I was working at a dismal job writing technical manuals, and James had a so-so position as a programmer. A nagging feeling was telling me that it was time to make a change, and it just wouldn't stop.

"I don't know why we thought we could do it — we just did — but within six months, we'd quit our jobs and started our own tech-writing and software company, even though neither of us had ever thought we'd be self-employed! Next, I wrote to the chambers of commerce in outdoorsy places like Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana — since we love being out in nature — asking for their marketing materials. When I saw Sandpoint, ID, in one of the destination guides, it seemed like a possibility. Sandpoint is green and forested, just what we love. We got on a plane to check it out, and as we flew into the airport over the mountains, James said, 'That looks like home, doesn't it?' I felt it too, and the hunch got stronger as we explored the area. I looked for red flags but couldn't find any — every cell in my body was telling me that this was it. We went back to San Diego and put our condo up for sale!

"We've been here 12 years and live in a beautiful log home on 40 acres of forest, where we run our businesses remotely from among the trees. Life's changed, to say the least: I got the four dogs I couldn't have in a condo and started my organic garden. Instead of getting in a car to commute, James rides a tractor on our land. We no longer feel that anxious need to get away — we're right where we want to be!"

"I know that every mom wants the best for her child, but what if the only education available is in a failing school that has a crime rate higher than some U.S. suburbs? I worked in the Los Angeles school system for 15 years — I started out as a teacher, got promoted to principal, and eventually became an administrator. The whole reason I got into education was to change children's lives, but in every job I had, I was never quite sure if I was making a difference, and I had a deep feeling inside me that I could do something more. That feeling got even stronger when I'd think about my 13-year-old son, who's a special-needs kid, and the fact that even with my connections it was hard to get him into the best classrooms — so I couldn't imagine what it might be like for other parents. I began daydreaming about starting my own school, and once I started thinking about it, I couldn't stop. Within a month after the thought first entered my mind, I had written a 180-page application to open a charter school.

"I mentioned it to my supervisors at work, but they all discouraged me, saying that with 60 percent of kids dropping out of schools in our community, it was too large a project, too expensive, and a 'catastrophe waiting to happen.' I looked for grants and investors, but no one would touch me. But I knew in my gut that I couldn't keep working in a failing school system, so I made a drastic move that nobody thought would work: I took out a second mortgage on my home to get the money to build the school! Then I went to two friends in the community and convinced them to do the same! I hired a core staff, and less than a year later, in September 2005, we opened our doors to 120 eager students, grades kindergarten through 8. Within a month, we had 330 kids.

"In that first year, supervisors taught, teachers supervised, and we all acted as custodians, but I somehow knew that we would succeed, in part because I had acted on instinct before in my life: I emigrated from Panama when I was 20, but I went back for a visit after I found out that a friend's sister, who was dying of AIDS, had put her infant son in an orphanage. My intention was just to visit them, but that 'feeling' came over me when I saw the boy, and for absolutely no other reason than a sense that I should, I adopted him right on the spot. He is the light of my life, and every single time I look at him, I know that I can always trust my intuition.

"Since 2005, we've opened two additional schools, serving more than 700 kids in our community, over 90 percent of whom are poor. These parents used to have no choice but to send their kids to bad schools, and I'm so proud that we've given them another option. Our schools outperform all of the other schools in the area on academic tests, and average attendance is 98 percent, something that's unheard of here. Imagine how things would be if I didn't believe that I could make a difference! What do I know in my gut? That the world turns because people do good things every day, for no other reason than that they have a feeling that they can."

"In March 2003, my husband, Curtis, was badly burned in an electrical accident when a defective electrical breaker exploded in the building where he was working. He had burns on 35 percent of his body and was immediately rushed to the hospital. After two weeks he started to decline, but every doctor I encountered assured me that he would be fine once his burns healed. I was working as a bookkeeper at a roofing company, so it's not as if I could see something that they weren't seeing, but I knew that something more was wrong with Curtis. I didn't know if it was his big toe, his brain, or his lungs — I just had a feeling that he was being left to die. There was no logic to it, and I kept telling myself that I was being a lunatic, but I just didn't believe all of the doctors who kept telling me he was fine. I exhausted myself trying to convince myself that they were right, but it was as if my husband's voice was screaming in my ear to help him — and it just wouldn't stop.

"I called every specialist I could find, begging them to take a second look. One specialist, who had assured me less than 12 hours earlier that my husband was okay, finally relented and looked at the now week-old ultrasound that had been performed on Curtis's body after he was admitted. He then saw that Curtis's gallbladder was dead. He rushed my husband to surgery and discovered that gangrene had set in, and if the organ and surrounding tissue weren't immediately removed, Curtis would die within days, maybe hours.

"At that point, it had been three weeks since the accident, and we had originally been told that his hospital stay would last a month. Instead, because of this medical oversight, he spent 108 days in the hospital and nearly died. Even though I had nothing but my instincts to guide me, I know I saved his life. Curtis is very much alive today, as handsome and sexy as he ever was, and I know I'm lucky. I now work as a patient safety advocate, and I get a phone call at least once a week from somebody whose loved one has been a victim of medical error. I tell anyone faced with a health-care issue to ignore what the 'experts' are telling them and trust their gut. My husband is living proof that it works."

"Seven years ago, I was downsized from my marketing job at a national corporation. I didn't want to work for a big company again, so I started a small business with a friend called Smart City Kids, which helped families get their children into New York City's top schools, something I knew about from going through the process with my own two kids. The business was a wild experience, with parents' going to shocking extremes to get their children into these schools. One single mom whose child was going through the application process paid an actor to pose as her husband during parent interviews because she thought it would reflect better on her daughter! The daughter was accepted, and then the mom went through a pretend divorce! After three years, I couldn't take the tears — from the parents, not the kids — so I quit.

"My husband and kids wanted me to look for a job, but a nagging voice in my head told me that I should write a novel based on my Smart City Kids experience. The only other time that being a writer had entered my mind was when I was a child — when I thought that being some sort of artist sounded fun — but I never knew anyone who actually made a living doing it. I still didn't know any writers, but I couldn't shake the feeling, even though the only creative thing I had ever written was an annual holiday letter that my friends and family told me was funny. I thought, If I can write an entertaining two-page letter, I just need to write 150 of them and I'll have a novel.

"My husband said I was nuts, but for some reason, I just knew I could do it. He said, 'How long will it take?' Pulling an answer out of the sky, I replied, 'Three months.' Ninety days later, my first draft was finished. A friend showed it to a book editor acquaintance who read it and said, 'I lost interest after the first hundred pages.' Ouch.

"I felt terrible. My son told me that I should go get a job like a normal mom. But I still had that 'feeling,' so I spent two months of 14-hour days revising the book. Through a strange connection — my babysitter — I found a literary agent who agreed to read my manuscript. A week later, the agent called, saying that she loved it and wanted to represent me! My book, The Ivy Chronicles, became the subject of a four-way bidding war among publishers and became a national best seller in 2005. The movie rights were sold to Warner Brothers!

"I've since published a second book, Wife in the Fast Lane, and my third, Holly Would Dream, came out this summer. I'm not sure I can explain where that voice came from and why it convinced me that I could become a novelist with no experience, no connections, and no track record. I'm just happy that I listened to it and believed in it, when I so easily could have dismissed the whole thing as wishful thinking!"

"One hot summer evening four years ago, I decided to take a shower before going to bed. While I was washing up, something told me to lift my left arm and examine my breast, which was weird because I had never done a breast self-exam before. Still, I have always felt in tune with my body; for instance, when I became pregnant with each of my four kids, I had a 'feeling' that I had conceived long before I missed a period.

"This time, as I did the self-exam, I felt a lump. I shifted my body in different directions, but the lump was still sitting there, right beneath my underarm. I couldn't believe what I was feeling and my heart started to race. In that moment, I was sure that something was wrong.

"I went to the ob/gyn a few days later. I had talked to this same doctor six months earlier, when one of my nipples was cracked and bleeding, and he had said that it was dry skin and told me that I should 'just put cocoa butter on it,' something that I had never felt quite right about. At this visit, my nipple was still bleeding and cracked, but it was as if my doctor didn't even see it or didn't want to deal with it. And when I showed him the lump, he insisted that he didn't feel anything. But I knew what I felt, so I insisted on a mammogram. My doctor told me that it wasn't necessary, and then he actually left the room to see his next patient! I really couldn't believe the way he was blowing me off, and I just knew that I could not accept his reaction — I was sure that something was wrong.

"After a few minutes, this doctor came back into the exam room, telling me that there was nothing more that he could do for me. I told him that I would absolutely not leave his office until I had a referral from him for a mammogram. The doctor kept leaving and coming back, and every time, I just refused to leave the room, insisting that I needed the test because I knew deep down in my gut that something wasn't right. I had never in my life acted quite this stubborn before, in any situation, but I was so completely certain I needed that mammogram that I never once even considered leaving his office without it. I guess the doctor got tired of me taking up space in his exam room because after about an hour of this back-and-forth, he finally handed me that referral.

"I had the mammogram a few days later — it revealed that there wasn't just one lump in my breast but a total of three, along with swollen lymph nodes. I was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer, and I spent the next two years going through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Today, I'm completely cancer-free, but I still get tears in my eyes every time I think about what could have happened. My children could be motherless. My husband could be a widower. I am forever thankful that I followed through and acted on instinct — that weird little feeling saved my life."